Cross another name of the Arizona Football head coach candidate list! Navy Football head coach Ken Niumatalolo is staying put. Next!
This morning the Navy Football team tweeted out that their head coach Ken Niumatalolo will be returning for the 11th season. Reports came out yesterday that the coach was offered the Arizona Football head coaching job and that he was going back to his administration to talk to them.
Coach Niumatalolo put out a statement through the Maryland Capital Gazette:
"“After much prayer and pondering it has become crystal clear that USNA is a special place with special people and I love it here. Plus, I have unfinished business!”"
Coach Niumatalolo, a devout Mormon, has been at Navy for two decades and head coach for a decade. Multiple football insiders spoke out about what a great choice he would have been for Arizona Football. It was reported by Michael Lev of AZCentral that Niumatalolo was a Dick Tomey pick. So Arizona seems to have lost out, and fans saying they didn’t want this coach may not have known this about this tidbit, but if it’s not where he wants to coach, then Wildcats fans will have wave goodbye and move on (see what we did there?).
SOURCE: Navy coach Ken Niumatalolo had withdrawn his name from consideration for the Arizona job. He will remain with the Mids for an 11th season. https://t.co/Uclu5KVbPj
— Adam Rittenberg (@ESPNRittenberg) January 14, 2018
#NavyFootball head coach @NAVYCoachKen will be returning for his 11th year as head coach of the Midshipmen. Navy opens up the 2018 season at Hawai'i on Sept. 1
— Navy Athletics (@NavyAthletics) January 14, 2018
The clock is ticking. National Signing day is February 7th and Arizona Football has signed 16 players so far. For the sake of those 16 players and the current roster as well as this being day 11 in the search and it being very late to get a coach to sign on, it seems Marcel Yates is possibly emerging as the front-runner. Continuity is key and the program seems to be in an upheaval if you pay attention to social media.
Wildcats fans did have a point in that regardless of how popular and respected Coach Niumatalolo is on the East Coast, selling his experience for the Pac-12 style of offense to compete against the Chip Kelly and David Shaw run offenses.
Must Read: More on Arizona Football from ZZ..
BYU tried to take Niumatalolo away from Navy at some point, Arizona seemed to try, and he is staying put at Navy. It worked out for Ken, he probably got a raise or some new promises going forward from his existing boss. For Dave Heeke, it’s back to plan B or C, if he has those lined up it will get interesting. He has to make a solid decision, if he waits a couple of days, it is not going to make too much of a difference if he keeps Yates and his staff they continue to recruit.